William Baxter, People or Penguins: The Case for Optimal PollutionJanuary 25, 2005

Clean air/water and preserving wildernesses are means rather than ends
(instrumentally valuable); Human freedom is an end in itself
(intrinsically valuable)

Why have clean air? Why preserve wilderness? These questions
call for an answer.

Why protect human freedom? Does not require an answer. It is
self-evident.

Don't assume that one need not give a reason for claims
that things are intrinsically valuable.

Four criteria for policy:

People should have as much freedom as is compatible with other
people's interests (freedoms)

Waste is bad: Resources, labor, skill should be employed to yield
as much human satisfaction as possible

Anthropocentric assumption that only human satisfaction
counts

Every human is an end rather than a means to be used for the
betterment of others; each human has dignity and an absolute
claim to equal treatment by the community

Incentives and opportunities to improve one's share of
satisfaction should be preserved for each individual (justifies a
minimal share and rejects total egalitarian redistribution)

Baxter's anthropocentrism (human-centered view)

"Recently scientists have informed us that use of DDT in food
production is causing damage to the penguin population. . . The
scientific fact is often asserted as if the correct implication--that
we must stop agricultural use of DDT--followed from the mere
statement of the fact of penguin damage. But plainly it does not
follow if my criteria are employed. My criteria are oriented to
people, not penguins. Damage to penguins, or sugar pines, or
geological marvels is, without more, simply irrelevant. . .
Penguins are important because people enjoy seeing then walk
about rocks; and furthermore, the well-being of people would be
less impaired by halting use of DDT than by giving up penguins.
In short, my observations about environmental problems will be
people oriented. . . I have no interest in preserving penguins for
their own sake."

Criteria oriented to people, not penguins; no interest in preserving
penguins for own sake

Damage to nonhuman nature by itself is morally irrelevant (denial of
moral standing of nonhumans)

Penguins (nonhumans) are important only in so far as they benefit
people (their value is solely anthropocentric instrumental)

Each person represents one unit of importance and nothing else is of
any importance (in itself)

Baxter's arguments for his position (anthropocentrism)

First: No other position corresponds to the way most people really
think and act: Only anthropocentrism corresponds to reality

But that people think/act a certain way doesn't mean it is the
right way to think/act

Is it true that people think only humans count?

Second: Anthropocentrism won't lead to massive destruction of
nonhuman nature, because people depend on nature in various ways
and nature will be protected to the extent doing so is advantageous to
people

A very important point. Anthropocentrism can lead to an
environmental ethic: Take care of nature because it benefits
humans to do so (and only to the extent that it does so)

Third: Humans as surrogates for nonhumans: What is good for us, is
also good for nonhumans (anthropocentrism also indirectly protects
nature)

Fourth: Anthropocentrism is the only position that can be
practically administered

People are free privately to sacrifice their own self interest for
nonhumans (feed birds and bears; vote for the interests of
nonhumans); they should not be free to force others to sacrifice
their self-interest for the sake of nonhumans

(E.g., My prohibiting you from building on your wetlands
for the sake of the animals and plants who live there...)

Why is it permissible for people to force others to respect the
interests of other people and not also the interests of
nonhumans?

Fifth: Claiming that nonhumans are to be counted as ends rather than
means (=that they have intrinsic value/moral standing) can't be fairly
operationalized.

Problems include:

How much are they to count (a sugar pine is to count as much as
person? ½ as much? How many congressional representatives
should they have? Should a species count more than a person?)

Are these problems any more severe than deciding how to
weigh competing human interests?Child health care
versus social safety net for older Americans?

How are nonhumans to express their preferences?

Since nonhumans can't vote, they can't participate in
collective decision making or tell us what they want or
what is good for them.

Reply: But it is often quite clear what is good or bad for the
environment and some humans can represent the interests
of nonhumans ("can hold their proxies").

E.g., we have established the endangered species act and
set up the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to administer it.

How are we to select the humans who get to represent nature's
interests?

Self-appointment by environmentalists to represent nonhuman
nature is unacceptable (for it lets them undemocratically increase
their clout and impose their values on others)

Unfair to count environmentalists preferences toward
nature as more important than the preferences of other
humans about what happens to nature

This assumes that environmentalists are simply self-interested users of the environment just like industry and
business groups.

We need distinguish between enviros who represent their
own interests (say in backpacking and having parks to
visit) and enviros who represent nature's interests by
pushing for species preservation and protecting places they
will never visit

Sixth: Questions of ought and right/wrong are unique to the human
world and are meaningless when applied to nature (apart from human
preferences towards nature)

This challenges the whole enterprise of an environmental
ethics course such as this one.

That only humans can ask questions about right/wrong
does not show that nonhumans can't be treated
rightly/wrongly

The claim that we ought to preserve the environment or "the
balance of nature" makes no sense unless the reason for so doing
is to benefit man (is anthropocentric)

Why does it not make sense to protect the environment for
the sake of nonhumans?Might they not have a good of
their own that we can (and perhaps should) consider?

No right or morally correct state of nature to which we should
return

No right or wrong in nature without humans (not right or wrong
for mountains to form or for wolves to kill deer)

True: But once humans are present, they can ask if their
treatment of nature is right or wrong.

While no right/wrong in nature absent moral agents like
humans, there could be positive and negative value in
nature w/o humans(pleasure & pain of sentient creatures)

Only way to distinguish right/wrong ways to act toward
nature (wrong to kill penguins with DDT, right to slaughter
cattle for food; wrong to kill trees with pollution, right to kill
them for houses for poor) is in terms of how it benefits/harms
humans

Why can't we determine this by the affects of our actions on
nonhumans?

Conclusions about pollution: The right amount of pollution is the
amount that best satisfies human interests ("The optimal state of
pollution")

This is unlikely to be zero pollution, because preventing and
cleaning up pollution has significant costs and at some point
human interests are likely to be better served using those
resources for other things people care about (hospitals, can
openers, homes for the poor, symphonies)

There is a tradeoff between a clean/pristine environment and
other things people care about

We should clean up/prevent pollution (and give up other things
people care about to do this) only until people begin to value
these other things more than they value a clean environment.

Shall society spend 10 million dollars cleaning up a abandoned
toxic waste site or providing health care for uninsured children?

Should a business spend 10 million dollars to prevent/reduce its
pollution (a costs that is passed on to its consumers & employees
& shareholders)or should it be allowed to pollute and
potentially harm the health and welfare of humans and
nonhumans

Forcing it to internalize these pollution prevention costs
(include them in the price of its products, rather than to
externalize them onto others) will allow economy to shift
toward more env. friendly businesses that don't have such
high pollution costs

Baxter might use cost/benefit analysis and say that if the
costs of repairing the health of those harmed by the
pollution is less than the $10 million needed to prevent it,
then we should not clean up the pollution (but have the
company pay the people made sick?).

This ignores fairness/justice: Why should one be
allowed to make others sick because it costs him
more to prevent this than others benefit from not
being harmed?